LONDON — The city already has a Beatles museum and a Beatles-themed hotel. Its airport is even named after John Lennon. Now a Liverpool university says it rolling out a graduate program entirely devoted to the Fab Four. Liverpool Hope University said Tuesday that its new master's program, "The Beatles, Popular Music and Society," would give students the opportunity to analyze popular music and culture through the band's work.
"There have been over 8,000 books about The Beatles but there has never been serious academic study and that is what we are going to address," said Mike Brocken, who is directing the program at the university, which is in the band's hometown in northwestern England.
Brocken, who said he learned to play his favorite album, "Revolver," on his tennis racket as a child, said students would be expected to study the Beatles' songs, stardom, hometown and cultural impact through four 12-week courses and a dissertation.
In one such course – studio sound and composition – a student could perform a Beatles song as an assignment.
Brocken said studying the band was really a way of examining society as a whole.
"If popular music is about anything, it's about people," he said. "If we look at popular culture, it simply provides us with a very complex mirror of ourselves."
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On the Net:
Liverpool Hope University: http://www.hope.ac.uk/
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Sean Penn, fresh from his Academy Award win as best actor in "Milk," will headline today with state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, activist Cleve Jones and friends and family of the late San Francisco supervisor to push for Harvey Milk Day in California.
The 11 a.m. event at the Tosca Cafe - starring Penn, who also has been a Chronicle foreign correspondent - is aimed to lobby for Senate Bill 572 , a measure that closely mirrors one vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year.
The bill designates May 22 as "a day of special significance in California," in which public schools would be encouraged "to conduct suitable commemorative exercises on Harvey Milk's life and his contributions to the state," according to the news release.
But with the huge hole in the state budget and increased calls to cut back current paid state holidays, supporters also note that the legislation doesn't call for state workers or school employees to get a day off work.
Milk, of course, was one of the nation's first openly gay elected officials, and his acclaimed biopic - starring Penn - brought his story to millions around the country.
He and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Supervisor Dan White on Nov. 27, 1978.
Still, look for conservative Republicans, who are lining up to run for office, and evangelical grassroots activists to resist this one - big time.
How right on would this be?? If there is a petition I would gladly sign it.
